Used car review: Subaru Impreza WRX 1998-2000

The first WRXs were probably the best, and are cheap enough now to be a weekend special, writes DAVID MORLEY.

Used car review: Subaru Impreza WRX 1998-2000

16 March 2011David Morley

It's often said that the original is the best. Sometimes, this is true.History can be a harsh judge of material things, and cars are no different. What seemed like a good update at the time can often, years later, be revealed as simply window dressing and, sometimes, even a backward step.

Take the Subaru WRX as an example.

The first upgrade to the car in 2000 led to the boggle-eyed monster that nobody then, or now, seems to want to own.

And now Subaru has recently given us an all-new WRX with a body style so radically different from its forebears that without the badge to guide you, you would never guess they were even related.

What all this means for the WRX's fortunes remains to be seen but, if nothing else, it has brought the purity of the first WRXs into sharp focus.

The other effect time has had on the original WRX is to reduce its retained value to a fraction of its brand-new cost.

They're now so cheap that some people are starting to look at the original WRX as a car to keep in the shed through the week and enjoy in small doses on the weekend.

And as a Sunday car, the first WRX has a heck of a lot going for it.

For a start, it was the lightest car to bear the WRX tag, and while that also means it's probably going to have the odd rattle and squeak these days, it also means that performance is right up there, despite it lacking outright power compared with later models.

Even so, 155 kW in a small package like this is not to be sneezed at, but, even more importantly, it is the way the WRX made its power. Rather than wait ages for the turbocharger to spool up, it came in quite early and in an explosive lump.

It's an addictive, intoxicating rush.

Early cars were exclusively five-speed manuals. An automatic WRX was introduced in 1998, but the two-pedal version is not seen as the real deal, nor is it nearly as much fun to drive.